Ad Rank: What Everyone Ought To Know About The Jungle In Adwords

Ever heard of the alpha male?

It’s a term used to describe the dominant male among  animals that live in groups. Usually the alpha male has special privileges like eating first, drinking first, being the first to mate or even the ONLY  one to mate.

Wikipedia refers the alpha male as being the animal with the highest  RANK.

What does this have to do with AdWords?

Well, remember how Google ranks ads on search results… Using a mesure called Ad Rank.

Ads with high Ad Rank take high positions while ads with lower Ad rank sink at the bottom.

But that’s just half the story and like social animals, Alpha Advertisers (advertisers with ads of high Ad Rank) get benefits that their competitors don’t. If you can increase your Ad Rank, Google will be generous in terms of traffic, position and cost.

Ad Rank Formula

The formula is very simple…

Ad Rank = MaxCPC  x Quality Score

… and very important to understand.

Anytime you change your bid (maxCPC), Ad Rank goes up or down. Every time your Quality Score (QS) changes, Ad Rank goes up or down.  Every time Ad Rank goes up or down, your ads get preferential treatment… or not.

Where To Find Your Ad Rank

Well, you can’t find it. We know that Ad Rank exists but there’s no place in adwords where you can see exactly what ad rank each of your ad is receiving. However, it is possible for you to find out exactly what you’re missing out with a low Ad Rank using the Impression Share metric.

Impression Share is the percentage of the times your ads where shown out of the times they were eligible to be shown.  By customizing the columns in your Adwords account, at the campaign level, you can see how much impression share your ads have lost due to a lower Ad Rank. That’s one way to tell if you have great Ad Rank or not.

How To Get Higher Ad Rank And Dominate The Jungle

In order to have high Ad Rank, you need the ability to bid high and get high Quality Scores. It’s important to have both and it can be a challenge to obtain them. Although you can work your way up with high QS, it will be much easier and more profitable if you can afford bidding high as well.  Let’s get into more details…

Jungle Rule 1: Earn The Ability To Bid Higher

It’s all about your conversion rate. Every time you increase your conversion rate, you increase your ability to bid high. In fact, you should figure out the bid that yields maximum profitability for your business (yes, there is one) with every conversion rate you achieve.

How to have better conversion rates?

The offer. The copy. The design.

Those are my personal ingredients to high conversions…  in that order.

The offer is by far the most important component and it impacts everything else you do. To have the best offer, you need to know what your potential customers actually want. This is important and most people assume they know and fail to take the extra effort to “really” find out. If you’re interested in having a method to discovering what customers want, I always recommend The Perfection Of Marketing by James Connor, a book that I think every business owner/marketer should own.

Once you know what your prospects want, you need to know how to convey it with powerful copywriting. Spend time crafting a message that resonates  with your target market  in simple words.

Then comes the design. Crappy won’t do it (most of the times). Though some great copy writers can pull it off with crappy web design, you should leverage every tool at your disposal. A clear, clean and simple design wins. And by the way, simple and clear is usually better than beautiful.

Jungle Rule 2: Get The Highest Quality Scores

Ah, that little number we love to hate loving over at Tenscores.com. Are you still wondering how to increase Quality Score? Can’t blame you. There seem to be a conspiracy around the web to put people on the wrong track at every turn.

I wonder who started it…

Here’s the ONLY  thing you need to know about QS and it’s not complicated:

If you have low QS… unless the diagnostic bubble tells you otherwise, Quality Score  EQUALS click-through rates. Nothing else.

Let me explain.

The diagnostic bubble is that little place besides keywords that give you some indication about why you have low scores. Take a look at the screenshot on the lower right.

The “keyword relevance” part is key. What they really mean is keyword click-through-rate (CTR). So, unless that bubble tells you of landing page problems or load time problems, all you have to focus on is CTR. That’s it. The tricky part is, the CTR is not necessarily yours, it is sometimes other advertiser’s CTR. But even that is no big deal if you focus on increasing your own CTRs continuously (without sacrificing conversion rates of course).

So unless things change, as of today, November 2011, there’s no such thing as semantic relevance in calculations of quality score. And if there is any at all, it is small enough to simply dismiss it. Since the day I stopped worrying whether my landing page was relelvant or wether my ad had keywords in it and simply sharpened my ad-writing skills for higher CTRs, quality score has become the least of my challenges. All that Google cares about in regards to QS is CTR. Thanks to Craig Danuloff for confirming this in his book on quality: Quality Score  In High Resolution.  Anyone who wishes to disagree should read that book in its entirety first.

So please, will you give more attention to your Adwords ads CTR?! I beg you, for the sake of your business.

And here’s where the circle is closed: the best  way to get higher CTR is to figure out what searchers want and give it to them. Just like increasing conversions.

Once you can afford bidding high because your conversion rates and profit margins are so good and you understand quality score well enough to increase it, the snow ball starts to roll, your ads get more exposure, you get more traffic to your website, your costs are reduced and you become an Alpha Advertiser.

Don’t wait any longer… rule your jungle!

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Certified Knowledge. If you would like to write for Certified Knowledge, please let us know.

Ad Rank: What Everyone Ought To Know About The Jungle In Adwords is a post from: Certified Knowledge

Example of a Star Student & The Best Business Advice You Could Possibly Get

Today Kevin Thompson, a long-time customer from the Pacific Northwest, posted a very gracious thank-you to me on my blog.

Not all the comments on this blog post are positive; some are sad and even poignant stories of business struggles and defeats, mixed in with some fantastic success stories.

I need to tell you about Kevin. Kevin is a very successful serial entrepreneur that’s sold everything from carpet cleaning to “How to get mold out of your house” to business advice for stay-at-home-moms.

Kevin was THE very first buyer of my Definitive Guide to Google AdWords in May 2003 at a Matt Furey seminar in Tampa.

I posted a very instructive reply, which is a story about Kevin. This contains some of the best advice I could possibly give anyone. Here’s what I said:

Kevin, let me tell you a story I bet you’ve never heard before.

I was in a Dan Kennedy meeting someplace – VIP group maybe, or it could have been a seminar – and somebody who’s a niche guru says, “I’ve got this ONE guy who does EVERYTHING I tell him to do. Everything. He’s an implementation machine. Nobody else does everything I tell ‘em to do, just Kevin.”

Somebody says, “You mean Kevin Thompson?”

“Yeah, Kevin Thompson.”

The guy says, “Well Kevin Thompson is one of MY customers and he does everything *I* tell him to do too!”

And yes, you were in the front row at Furey’s seminar in Tampa, handing over your credit card, buying copy #1 of my Definitive Guide to Google AdWords in 2003, which wasn’t even finished yet. And…. you were one of the guys in MY customer list who did “everything.”

And look where you are now.

At our mastermind meeting, Dan replies wryly: “If all of us sold our info products just to people who actually do everything we tell them to do, we’d all only have one customer, and it would be Kevin Thompson.”

Dude, you gotta give yourself a pat on the back for that and you’ve gotta take a look at all the other comments on this page. Not all of ‘em are positive.

There are no guarantees in life and some people don’t get the success they so crave. I know that. Boy, do I ever know that. I have a front row seat to all of it. But all I can do is my job.

It’s like Les Brown says: “It’s better to be prepared and not have an opportunity, than have an opportunity and not be prepared.”

I find a startlingly consistent correlation between LISTENING TO A VERY SMALL GROUP OF MENTORS, PREFERABLY JUST ONE > MASSIVE, ALMOST RECKLESS IMPLEMENTATION > EVENTUAL SUCCESS. Not 100% mind you, but enough that I can usually identify why someone hasn’t succeeded. It’s seldom all that hard.

The most typical person who’s spent $50,000 going into debt and getting educated by online gurus and has nothing to show for it is on 22 different email lists and has products from 14 different people, most of which have only been acted upon 25% and not in any comprehensive systematic way. It’s spotty and shotgun with a trail of unfinished projects.

You are an exception and I know exactly why.

So buy yourself a nice lunch today and celebrate being who you are.

It’s great to know ya. See you soon I hope, let’s grab a beer.

Perry

Dear Reader, if you earnestly seek success then I encourage you to read my entire blog post and ALL the comments. And once again, a congratulations goes to Kevin Thompson for being a DOER.

Last Chance to Register for the Miami AdWords Seminar

The Advanced AdWords Seminar for success tour will be stopping in Miami, October 11 & 12, 2011.

Our events have been selling out recently, so if you want to attend you should register early.

Learn more about the AdWords Seminars.

Register for the Miami AdWords Seminar.

The AdWords Seminars have been a huge success over the past few years. But instead of me prattling on about how good they are, you can see what other’s have had to say:

 

Can’t Make it to Miami?

Here is the advanced seminar schedule for the rest of 2011:

• Seattle – September 22 & 23
• Philadelphia – September 28 & 29
• Miami – October 11 & 12

You can see the curriculum and learn more about the seminars on our AdWords Seminar Event page.

 

 

Read Attendee Testimonials

First, I flew down to your conference in Houston not really having any expectations on what I was going to learn in a one day seminar over something that has paralysis by analysis written all over it like Adwords. However, I feel afterwards, it was one of the most positive and understandable conferences that I have ever attended.

You did a great job in explaining and relating the information into a plan that even an amateur like myself can understand. I have taken a lot of the information and began to implement the ideas into actual measurable results.

I just wanted to send you a note in appreciation for your time and thank you for all the information that you provided. I hopefully will get to goto another seminar in the future.

Neal Freeman, Catalog/Assistant eCommerce Manager, Dallas Cowboys Merchandising

I flew from Japan just for this seminar, and it was worth every penny. I know there are many people who teach AdWords, but no one is as specific as he is, and he doesn’t mind sharing the information with you. When it comes to AdWords, he is the one to listen.

Taka, President, lpo-consulting.com/

Great seminar. A lot of interesting information. You can tell that Brad knows exactly what he is talking about. Thank you so much.

Valeri Volkov, United City Group Clearwater, FL

Brad I wanted to write and thank you again. My staff and I came away with a lot of very useful information. Having been a long time user, I thought I understood AdWords, Analytics and landing pages well. I wasn’t even close to the level of what I know now. I should have done this long ago. If the ideas running through my head were gears in a machine there would be smoke coming from them. Truly eye opening.

Jay Papineau, IT Manager, Northwest Clinical Research Center

I learned an amazing amount from in the Seminars for Success Advanced Adwords course in two short days early this week. Brad taught us a huge number of you-gotta-know-this Adwords lessons that are turning into money in the bank for us already 3 days later. I think this seminar was probably the best money I have ever invested in a seminar.

Walt Monk, Owner, WebWelcomer.com

You did a great job in the seminars this week. You totally are an expert on the subject and that was great to see. Well worth the money for the seminar and the education I got. I have been working on adwords for about 4 years now mostly part time, took the basic classes two years ago in Dallas and so it was great to move to the next level of knowledge. I feel empowered! Please email me when your new book comes out.

Kenneth H. Butler , Butler Information Technologies, Inc.

Within a few hours my goals for this 2 day Seminar in Toronto had already been achieved, I thought it was a very interesting and helpful Seminar. Brad, I admire your enthusiasm and wide range of knowledge. Keep up the good work! I would recommend this Seminar to anyone who has a basic knowledge about Adwords and Analytics. For Analytics you need to know a bit more about the technical implementation though.

Dennis , Wicked Media NV

The seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I attended Brads 301 and 302 google adwords seminar in Toronto this past week and was a little skeptical at first if i would learn anything useful. Well I was quite impressed with his knowledge and actually did learn a lot about adwords and google analytics and how to get to the proper reports that show you how to fine tune your account. I highly recommend the workshop to SEM professional. Brad has a lot of tools and advice that you can don’t find on the standard web sites about how to use adwords. thanks!

John MacKenzie, President, EthicalHost.ca

The seminar was probably worth far more than 10 times the cost. I was astounded to see how much useful information Brad was able to deliver in one day. My only quasi-negative comment: It might have been too much good information. I’m a little overwhelmed just thinking about where to start with all the positive changes I can now make with our internet marketing.

Rick D. from Minneapolis

I attended Brad’s Google Adwords 301 and 302 seminars in San Diego and felt that I must let others know about how much I have gained from it. Let’s put it this way: for 7 hours each day of the seminar, you are so indulged in the important information that you don’t want to even goto the bathroom. The seminar will pay for itself 10 fold within the first few months. Brad will teach you so many money saving and money making tips. Thanks Brad.

Payam

I attended your AdWords seminar a few days ago in Chicago. I just wanted to thank you for the excellence in the material you have provided to me. I really appreciate your passion for internet marketing as I have similar passions. I have loved designing and developing websites since I discovered them when I was 12… The tools that you gave me will now allow me to cause the websites that I work on for clients truly be successful and not just sit on the web doing nothing. I am also inspired by your story and career. Thank You so much!

Brian Groce
Clear Notions Studio

Brad, great job with the seminar. It was taught well and at a good learning pace. You handled the array of questions from simple to hard with great explainations and analogies. I will probably be calling you for some personal phone consultations for my larger ppc clients. All the best!

Tony Mandarich
Mandarich.com

Very informative for me – I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords ‘tour’ explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Anonymous

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Anonymous

Thank you, Brad, for a terrific presentation. Right on target, insightful, and full of strategy.

Debbie Formica
Martindale’s Natural Market

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Bill S.

I think you are going to save me thousands and hopefully one day 100′s of thousands once my campaigns get bigger.

James Bird
marshalfirth.com

I’m an affiliate and this type of training is essential and you guys delivered the best quality in content I’ve even seen about the subject of adwords. I left the seminar feeling more confident about this interface, but I sure would have been glad to pay extra for access to recorded video sessions. Maybe that’s something you guys could offer soon? Thanks very much.

Charlie Perez.

Brad is a genius–and I don’t say that about a lot of people. He knows Google adwords inside and out. I was thoroughly impressed by his presentation.

Anonymous

I attended your Google Adwords Seminar for Success sessions in Austin earlier this week. I just wanted to say I really appreciated the content you offered. Your material was well balanced. I was fearful that because my company is not a product-selling company that we would not benefit from your information. That couldn?t have been further from the truth. Your seminar validated to me that the direction we have taken so far is appropriate. It is good to see and hear from an expert that we have made good decisions about our Adwords strategy. Your information and tips have given me new things to think about and to use when looking for new keywords to use, and as well to examine our existing keyword performance.

Stu Roberts
Director of Information Technology Nelson Architectural Engineers, Inc.
Investigative Engineering & Forensic Technology

The Google Adwords seminar by Brad Geddes was the most informative and enlightening one I have ever attended. The day flew by and the information gleaned was more than most two-day sessions I have attended.

Jeff Cunningham
Cunninghamn Gas Products
CunninghamLiving.com

Brad – GREAT JOB! you managed multiple experience levels beautifully. I learned a lot. Already seeing better results from my Adwords campaigns. I’m sure I’ll attend another session.

Steve Hodgdon

Very informative for me. I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords tour explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Matt Nelson

I recently attended the 2-day Google Seminar for Success in Houston and I must say, it was extraordinarily helpful! Brad was super thorough with the material and presented it in a way that kept our interest and provoked thought and constructive questions the entire time… and this is no easy task for an intensive, information-jammed course like this one. I was very excited to put this new knowledge to work and I fully expect that my business will see measurable progress as a result of Brad’s seminar. THANKS AGAIN!

Danny Shaftel
Shaftel Diamond Co.

I attended this conference in order to learn the latest Adwords developments, and in this respect, I found it to be most useful. We are using Adwords tools daily, so know more about them than the average user. Still, it is useful from time to time to take a step back and listen to an expert who is obviously plugged into the latest, as well as upcoming, developments. Brad is an exceptional speaker, offers insightful views about marketing theory, and is a technical master. Aside from that he demonstrates during his presentations a willingness to roll up his sleeves and delve into the nuts and bolts of how to manage Adwords to improve ROAS for clients.

Chris Lude
Denver-PPC.com

Brad did an excellent job. The material was very concise and clear and he answered all questions with certainty. All in all I would definitely recommend this seminar. Thanks for doing a really nice job.

Jesse Gray

Brad, the seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I found the two Adwords seminars, 301 and 302, to be invaluable to our ongoing and future success with our Google ad campaigns. After the two days, I was left with a limitless supply of ideas and methods of marketing our business to the masses on the internet. We were also given key indicators of success, which is very helpful. I also found Brad to be very personable and happy to answer the few questions that were unique from my perspective. I highly recommend this seminar for any sized business that is looking to expand into the world of internet marketing!

Roger Underhill
BattersChoice.com

Last Chance to Register for the Miami AdWords Seminar is a post from: Certified Knowledge

Standards. It’s time to raise ‘em. Here’s why.

You might not be in manufacturing, but no matter what you do, you’re still in the business of changing something or someone.

And whether you process plastic pellets or sell exotic travel packages, the following is always true:

If you set no standards for your raw material, you can make no promises about your finished product.

A girl that sleeps with anything in jeans gets no respect. A college that accepts just anyone can never become a Harvard or MIT. And a company that has no intake requirements can make no results guarantees.

This is why all my best programs have admission requirements:

• You can’t get into Bobsled Run unless you’re spending a bare minimum of $500/month on AdWords.
• You can’t go to Maui unless you’re spending $5K a month on advertising, preferably online.
• You can’t join Roundtable unless your sales are at least in the low to mid six figures.
• You can’t come to a 4-Man Intensive if you’re a rank beginner.

Why?

Initially it was simply because I prefer working with estudiantes who know what they’re doing. Roundtable is a total blast because everyone has hard-core, in-the-trenches business experience and the smell of battle on ‘em.

We’ve found that if when we make stipulations about the raw material, our students get much more consistent results and bigger success stories. We weed out the whiners in advance. Everyone’s happier.

I mentioned this to one guru and I watched the gears grinding in his head when I told him that we turn away 25-30% of our applicants. He couldn’t imagine that we’d just walk away from that money. But you can’t attract money or people, if you’re not willing to repel money and people.

The other day John Mendocha pointed out that I’m very nearly the only Internet guru who does this. I said, “Dang, you’re right. Never realized that before.”

I just wouldn’t have it any other way. Look, if you come to an event or join a coaching group, do you want to figure out 2 hours after you arrived that you’re the smartest guy in the room? I don’t think so.

Even our Mastermind Online Forum – whose only entrance requirement is the $99/month – is filled with such high quality people, I dare say it’s the best forum in the world of its kind. MM club members post questions and get extremely qualified answers, often only minutes later.

I LOVE my culture of high performers. I love the fact that an achievement in Planet Perry really does mean something. I love being surrounded by sharp people who love to contribute and who deserve to be heard.

I love the iron-sharpens-iron nature of people who truly want to improve their game.

YOUR customers will love that too.

Raise your standards. Be willing to turn away those you really can’t help, those who really don’t qualify.

Figure out who you know you can help and select THEM.

Those customers will be more expensive to acquire but I promise you, in the long run, you’ll have a much happier and prosperous following.

Perry Marshall

AdWords Editor in action – posting 831,613 Negative Keywords across over 400 Campaigns

Why not use Negative Keyword Lists?

I was actually going to do that until I started the process and realised there were serious problems with it.

Then I found that these do not take into account Phrase and Exact Match negative keywords, only Broad Match.

All three match types are important in these negative keywords, over 2,000 of them for every campaign (over 400 and growing) in the account.

I could have downloaded the list into excel from Editor, and tediously wrapped all the keywords with the needed punctuation since Editor exports them as

• keyword | Campaign Negative Exact Match, and not 
• -[keyword]

Then I would have needed to paste those into the negative keyword list and added all the campaigns to it.

Instead I just let AdWords Editor do all the work for me and leave it for a couple of hours to process and post, flawlessly.

I hadn't tried something on this scale before (nearly a million keywords to post) but I was confident all would be well – and it was (click to see full size images).

 

Last Chance to Register for the Philadelphia AdWords Seminar

The Advanced AdWords Seminar for success tour will be stopping in Philadelphia, September 28 & 29, 2011.

Our events have been selling out recently, so if you want to attend you should register early.

Learn more about the AdWords Seminars.

Register for the Philadelphia AdWords Seminar.

The AdWords Seminars have been a huge success over the past few years. But instead of me prattling on about how good they are, you can see what other’s have had to say:

 

Can’t Make it to Philadelphia?

Here is the advanced seminar schedule for the rest of 2011:

• Seattle – September 22 & 23
• Philadelphia – September 28 & 29
• Miami – October 11 & 12

You can see the curriculum and learn more about the seminars on our AdWords Seminar Event page.

 

 

Read Attendee Testimonials

First, I flew down to your conference in Houston not really having any expectations on what I was going to learn in a one day seminar over something that has paralysis by analysis written all over it like Adwords. However, I feel afterwards, it was one of the most positive and understandable conferences that I have ever attended.

You did a great job in explaining and relating the information into a plan that even an amateur like myself can understand. I have taken a lot of the information and began to implement the ideas into actual measurable results.

I just wanted to send you a note in appreciation for your time and thank you for all the information that you provided. I hopefully will get to goto another seminar in the future.

Neal Freeman, Catalog/Assistant eCommerce Manager, Dallas Cowboys Merchandising

I flew from Japan just for this seminar, and it was worth every penny. I know there are many people who teach AdWords, but no one is as specific as he is, and he doesn’t mind sharing the information with you. When it comes to AdWords, he is the one to listen.

Taka, President, lpo-consulting.com/

Great seminar. A lot of interesting information. You can tell that Brad knows exactly what he is talking about. Thank you so much.

Valeri Volkov, United City Group Clearwater, FL

Brad I wanted to write and thank you again. My staff and I came away with a lot of very useful information. Having been a long time user, I thought I understood AdWords, Analytics and landing pages well. I wasn’t even close to the level of what I know now. I should have done this long ago. If the ideas running through my head were gears in a machine there would be smoke coming from them. Truly eye opening.

Jay Papineau, IT Manager, Northwest Clinical Research Center

I learned an amazing amount from in the Seminars for Success Advanced Adwords course in two short days early this week. Brad taught us a huge number of you-gotta-know-this Adwords lessons that are turning into money in the bank for us already 3 days later. I think this seminar was probably the best money I have ever invested in a seminar.

Walt Monk, Owner, WebWelcomer.com

You did a great job in the seminars this week. You totally are an expert on the subject and that was great to see. Well worth the money for the seminar and the education I got. I have been working on adwords for about 4 years now mostly part time, took the basic classes two years ago in Dallas and so it was great to move to the next level of knowledge. I feel empowered! Please email me when your new book comes out.

Kenneth H. Butler , Butler Information Technologies, Inc.

Within a few hours my goals for this 2 day Seminar in Toronto had already been achieved, I thought it was a very interesting and helpful Seminar. Brad, I admire your enthusiasm and wide range of knowledge. Keep up the good work! I would recommend this Seminar to anyone who has a basic knowledge about Adwords and Analytics. For Analytics you need to know a bit more about the technical implementation though.

Dennis , Wicked Media NV

The seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I attended Brads 301 and 302 google adwords seminar in Toronto this past week and was a little skeptical at first if i would learn anything useful. Well I was quite impressed with his knowledge and actually did learn a lot about adwords and google analytics and how to get to the proper reports that show you how to fine tune your account. I highly recommend the workshop to SEM professional. Brad has a lot of tools and advice that you can don’t find on the standard web sites about how to use adwords. thanks!

John MacKenzie, President, EthicalHost.ca

The seminar was probably worth far more than 10 times the cost. I was astounded to see how much useful information Brad was able to deliver in one day. My only quasi-negative comment: It might have been too much good information. I’m a little overwhelmed just thinking about where to start with all the positive changes I can now make with our internet marketing.

Rick D. from Minneapolis

I attended Brad’s Google Adwords 301 and 302 seminars in San Diego and felt that I must let others know about how much I have gained from it. Let’s put it this way: for 7 hours each day of the seminar, you are so indulged in the important information that you don’t want to even goto the bathroom. The seminar will pay for itself 10 fold within the first few months. Brad will teach you so many money saving and money making tips. Thanks Brad.

Payam

I attended your AdWords seminar a few days ago in Chicago. I just wanted to thank you for the excellence in the material you have provided to me. I really appreciate your passion for internet marketing as I have similar passions. I have loved designing and developing websites since I discovered them when I was 12… The tools that you gave me will now allow me to cause the websites that I work on for clients truly be successful and not just sit on the web doing nothing. I am also inspired by your story and career. Thank You so much!

Brian Groce
Clear Notions Studio

Brad, great job with the seminar. It was taught well and at a good learning pace. You handled the array of questions from simple to hard with great explainations and analogies. I will probably be calling you for some personal phone consultations for my larger ppc clients. All the best!

Tony Mandarich
Mandarich.com

Very informative for me – I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords ‘tour’ explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Anonymous

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Anonymous

Thank you, Brad, for a terrific presentation. Right on target, insightful, and full of strategy.

Debbie Formica
Martindale’s Natural Market

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Bill S.

I think you are going to save me thousands and hopefully one day 100′s of thousands once my campaigns get bigger.

James Bird
marshalfirth.com

I’m an affiliate and this type of training is essential and you guys delivered the best quality in content I’ve even seen about the subject of adwords. I left the seminar feeling more confident about this interface, but I sure would have been glad to pay extra for access to recorded video sessions. Maybe that’s something you guys could offer soon? Thanks very much.

Charlie Perez.

Brad is a genius–and I don’t say that about a lot of people. He knows Google adwords inside and out. I was thoroughly impressed by his presentation.

Anonymous

I attended your Google Adwords Seminar for Success sessions in Austin earlier this week. I just wanted to say I really appreciated the content you offered. Your material was well balanced. I was fearful that because my company is not a product-selling company that we would not benefit from your information. That couldn?t have been further from the truth. Your seminar validated to me that the direction we have taken so far is appropriate. It is good to see and hear from an expert that we have made good decisions about our Adwords strategy. Your information and tips have given me new things to think about and to use when looking for new keywords to use, and as well to examine our existing keyword performance.

Stu Roberts
Director of Information Technology Nelson Architectural Engineers, Inc.
Investigative Engineering & Forensic Technology

The Google Adwords seminar by Brad Geddes was the most informative and enlightening one I have ever attended. The day flew by and the information gleaned was more than most two-day sessions I have attended.

Jeff Cunningham
Cunninghamn Gas Products
CunninghamLiving.com

Brad – GREAT JOB! you managed multiple experience levels beautifully. I learned a lot. Already seeing better results from my Adwords campaigns. I’m sure I’ll attend another session.

Steve Hodgdon

Very informative for me. I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords tour explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Matt Nelson

I recently attended the 2-day Google Seminar for Success in Houston and I must say, it was extraordinarily helpful! Brad was super thorough with the material and presented it in a way that kept our interest and provoked thought and constructive questions the entire time… and this is no easy task for an intensive, information-jammed course like this one. I was very excited to put this new knowledge to work and I fully expect that my business will see measurable progress as a result of Brad’s seminar. THANKS AGAIN!

Danny Shaftel
Shaftel Diamond Co.

I attended this conference in order to learn the latest Adwords developments, and in this respect, I found it to be most useful. We are using Adwords tools daily, so know more about them than the average user. Still, it is useful from time to time to take a step back and listen to an expert who is obviously plugged into the latest, as well as upcoming, developments. Brad is an exceptional speaker, offers insightful views about marketing theory, and is a technical master. Aside from that he demonstrates during his presentations a willingness to roll up his sleeves and delve into the nuts and bolts of how to manage Adwords to improve ROAS for clients.

Chris Lude
Denver-PPC.com

Brad did an excellent job. The material was very concise and clear and he answered all questions with certainty. All in all I would definitely recommend this seminar. Thanks for doing a really nice job.

Jesse Gray

Brad, the seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I found the two Adwords seminars, 301 and 302, to be invaluable to our ongoing and future success with our Google ad campaigns. After the two days, I was left with a limitless supply of ideas and methods of marketing our business to the masses on the internet. We were also given key indicators of success, which is very helpful. I also found Brad to be very personable and happy to answer the few questions that were unique from my perspective. I highly recommend this seminar for any sized business that is looking to expand into the world of internet marketing!

Roger Underhill
BattersChoice.com

Last Chance to Register for the Philadelphia AdWords Seminar is a post from: Certified Knowledge

Last Chance to Register for the Seattle AdWords Seminar

The Advanced AdWords Seminar for success tour will be stopping in Seattle, September 22 & 23, 2011.

Our events have been selling out recently, so if you want to attend you should register early.

Learn more about the AdWords Seminars.

Register for the Seattle AdWords Seminar.

The AdWords Seminars have been a huge success over the past few years. But instead of me prattling on about how good they are, you can see what other’s have had to say:

 

Can’t Make it to Seattle?

Here is the advanced seminar schedule for the rest of 2011:

• Dallas – August 24 & 25
• Seattle – September 22 & 23
• Philadelphia – September 28 & 29
• Miami – October 11 & 12

You can see the curriculum and learn more about the seminars on our AdWords Seminar Event page.

 

 

Read Attendee Testimonials

First, I flew down to your conference in Houston not really having any expectations on what I was going to learn in a one day seminar over something that has paralysis by analysis written all over it like Adwords. However, I feel afterwards, it was one of the most positive and understandable conferences that I have ever attended.

You did a great job in explaining and relating the information into a plan that even an amateur like myself can understand. I have taken a lot of the information and began to implement the ideas into actual measurable results.

I just wanted to send you a note in appreciation for your time and thank you for all the information that you provided. I hopefully will get to goto another seminar in the future.

Neal Freeman, Catalog/Assistant eCommerce Manager, Dallas Cowboys Merchandising

I flew from Japan just for this seminar, and it was worth every penny. I know there are many people who teach AdWords, but no one is as specific as he is, and he doesn’t mind sharing the information with you. When it comes to AdWords, he is the one to listen.

Taka, President, lpo-consulting.com/

Great seminar. A lot of interesting information. You can tell that Brad knows exactly what he is talking about. Thank you so much.

Valeri Volkov, United City Group Clearwater, FL

Brad I wanted to write and thank you again. My staff and I came away with a lot of very useful information. Having been a long time user, I thought I understood AdWords, Analytics and landing pages well. I wasn’t even close to the level of what I know now. I should have done this long ago. If the ideas running through my head were gears in a machine there would be smoke coming from them. Truly eye opening.

Jay Papineau, IT Manager, Northwest Clinical Research Center

I learned an amazing amount from in the Seminars for Success Advanced Adwords course in two short days early this week. Brad taught us a huge number of you-gotta-know-this Adwords lessons that are turning into money in the bank for us already 3 days later. I think this seminar was probably the best money I have ever invested in a seminar.

Walt Monk, Owner, WebWelcomer.com

You did a great job in the seminars this week. You totally are an expert on the subject and that was great to see. Well worth the money for the seminar and the education I got. I have been working on adwords for about 4 years now mostly part time, took the basic classes two years ago in Dallas and so it was great to move to the next level of knowledge. I feel empowered! Please email me when your new book comes out.

Kenneth H. Butler , Butler Information Technologies, Inc.

Within a few hours my goals for this 2 day Seminar in Toronto had already been achieved, I thought it was a very interesting and helpful Seminar. Brad, I admire your enthusiasm and wide range of knowledge. Keep up the good work! I would recommend this Seminar to anyone who has a basic knowledge about Adwords and Analytics. For Analytics you need to know a bit more about the technical implementation though.

Dennis , Wicked Media NV

The seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I attended Brads 301 and 302 google adwords seminar in Toronto this past week and was a little skeptical at first if i would learn anything useful. Well I was quite impressed with his knowledge and actually did learn a lot about adwords and google analytics and how to get to the proper reports that show you how to fine tune your account. I highly recommend the workshop to SEM professional. Brad has a lot of tools and advice that you can don’t find on the standard web sites about how to use adwords. thanks!

John MacKenzie, President, EthicalHost.ca

The seminar was probably worth far more than 10 times the cost. I was astounded to see how much useful information Brad was able to deliver in one day. My only quasi-negative comment: It might have been too much good information. I’m a little overwhelmed just thinking about where to start with all the positive changes I can now make with our internet marketing.

Rick D. from Minneapolis

I attended Brad’s Google Adwords 301 and 302 seminars in San Diego and felt that I must let others know about how much I have gained from it. Let’s put it this way: for 7 hours each day of the seminar, you are so indulged in the important information that you don’t want to even goto the bathroom. The seminar will pay for itself 10 fold within the first few months. Brad will teach you so many money saving and money making tips. Thanks Brad.

Payam

I attended your AdWords seminar a few days ago in Chicago. I just wanted to thank you for the excellence in the material you have provided to me. I really appreciate your passion for internet marketing as I have similar passions. I have loved designing and developing websites since I discovered them when I was 12… The tools that you gave me will now allow me to cause the websites that I work on for clients truly be successful and not just sit on the web doing nothing. I am also inspired by your story and career. Thank You so much!

Brian Groce
Clear Notions Studio

Brad, great job with the seminar. It was taught well and at a good learning pace. You handled the array of questions from simple to hard with great explainations and analogies. I will probably be calling you for some personal phone consultations for my larger ppc clients. All the best!

Tony Mandarich
Mandarich.com

Very informative for me – I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords ‘tour’ explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Anonymous

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Anonymous

Thank you, Brad, for a terrific presentation. Right on target, insightful, and full of strategy.

Debbie Formica
Martindale’s Natural Market

I really enjoyed the 2 days of advanced seminars in Chicago. Brad is obviously very educated in the ins and outs of AdWords. My only suggestion is I would have personally benefited from a little more time spent on more advanced AdWord bidding and advertising tactics.

Bill S.

I think you are going to save me thousands and hopefully one day 100′s of thousands once my campaigns get bigger.

James Bird
marshalfirth.com

I’m an affiliate and this type of training is essential and you guys delivered the best quality in content I’ve even seen about the subject of adwords. I left the seminar feeling more confident about this interface, but I sure would have been glad to pay extra for access to recorded video sessions. Maybe that’s something you guys could offer soon? Thanks very much.

Charlie Perez.

Brad is a genius–and I don’t say that about a lot of people. He knows Google adwords inside and out. I was thoroughly impressed by his presentation.

Anonymous

I attended your Google Adwords Seminar for Success sessions in Austin earlier this week. I just wanted to say I really appreciated the content you offered. Your material was well balanced. I was fearful that because my company is not a product-selling company that we would not benefit from your information. That couldn?t have been further from the truth. Your seminar validated to me that the direction we have taken so far is appropriate. It is good to see and hear from an expert that we have made good decisions about our Adwords strategy. Your information and tips have given me new things to think about and to use when looking for new keywords to use, and as well to examine our existing keyword performance.

Stu Roberts
Director of Information Technology Nelson Architectural Engineers, Inc.
Investigative Engineering & Forensic Technology

The Google Adwords seminar by Brad Geddes was the most informative and enlightening one I have ever attended. The day flew by and the information gleaned was more than most two-day sessions I have attended.

Jeff Cunningham
Cunninghamn Gas Products
CunninghamLiving.com

Brad – GREAT JOB! you managed multiple experience levels beautifully. I learned a lot. Already seeing better results from my Adwords campaigns. I’m sure I’ll attend another session.

Steve Hodgdon

Very informative for me. I was concerned most of it would go over my head but it was about right. Great presentation and question handling; the Adwords tour explained the tools available and led to a number of changes to my ads, keywords and website. Excellent value.

Matt Nelson

I recently attended the 2-day Google Seminar for Success in Houston and I must say, it was extraordinarily helpful! Brad was super thorough with the material and presented it in a way that kept our interest and provoked thought and constructive questions the entire time… and this is no easy task for an intensive, information-jammed course like this one. I was very excited to put this new knowledge to work and I fully expect that my business will see measurable progress as a result of Brad’s seminar. THANKS AGAIN!

Danny Shaftel
Shaftel Diamond Co.

I attended this conference in order to learn the latest Adwords developments, and in this respect, I found it to be most useful. We are using Adwords tools daily, so know more about them than the average user. Still, it is useful from time to time to take a step back and listen to an expert who is obviously plugged into the latest, as well as upcoming, developments. Brad is an exceptional speaker, offers insightful views about marketing theory, and is a technical master. Aside from that he demonstrates during his presentations a willingness to roll up his sleeves and delve into the nuts and bolts of how to manage Adwords to improve ROAS for clients.

Chris Lude
Denver-PPC.com

Brad did an excellent job. The material was very concise and clear and he answered all questions with certainty. All in all I would definitely recommend this seminar. Thanks for doing a really nice job.

Jesse Gray

Brad, the seminar you lead was awesome. My only regret is that I did not fire the consultant I had about 3 months earlier! He was a good guy, but just did not get it. Your course saved me weeks of self study, and I am already seeing much better results than I have ever seen using a consultant.

St. Clair Newbern IV

I found the two Adwords seminars, 301 and 302, to be invaluable to our ongoing and future success with our Google ad campaigns. After the two days, I was left with a limitless supply of ideas and methods of marketing our business to the masses on the internet. We were also given key indicators of success, which is very helpful. I also found Brad to be very personable and happy to answer the few questions that were unique from my perspective. I highly recommend this seminar for any sized business that is looking to expand into the world of internet marketing!

Roger Underhill
BattersChoice.com

Last Chance to Register for the Seattle AdWords Seminar is a post from: Certified Knowledge

AdWords Training in Bracknell, Reading, Slough, Basingstoke, Fleet, Windsor, Newbury, Swindon and Oxford, UK

New York, London, Maui – Bracknell?

Why AdWords Training Masterclasses in – Bracknell? (and the Thames Valley, Berkshire).

I've been working with AdWords since 2005, and yet even today I never stop getting surprising new insights from it based on all sorts of things I see in client accounts (this week for example – we deleted keywords from a client campaign, and impressions and clicks *rose* steeply while CPC fell – huh? Perhaps Hal Varian is right after all …)

And of course Google continually sneak new things out without even telling us …

I've been training AdWords clients on and off since 2007, but usually remotely over a period of weeks (my corporate background also has quite a bit of training preparation and delivery in it).

In late 2009 I started working very intensively with a client for who the AdWords Conversion Optimizer seemed a good fit.

The results were truly startling and gave me a profound (and probably unique at that time, outside of Google themselves) insight into what lay under the hood of the system which so many of us had been working with, and believed we understood, since 2003 or so.

As I tested new things, and deliberately broke all the rules to see what would happen, I made strange new discoveries that defied all the logic and best practices we had evolved up to that point in time.

But they also answered many questions and dispelled many myths (why do all new campaigns default to all networks? and what's the best way to set ad rotation?)

By then I had attended several System Seminars in Chicago and had established relationships with some of our top Industry publishers, so I started sharing my findings with my good friend Bryan Todd at Perry Marshall and Associates. 

As I got more data, they became increasingly interested in having me share it at their first upcoming AdWords Elite Masters Summit on Maui, (April 2010).

When I mentioned it to Ken McCarthy, he invited me to share it at the System Seminar Chicago 2010, and then so did Howie Jacobson at Camp Checkmate too.

I'd never stood up and presented to hundreds of people before (not since I gave my Groom Wedding Speech anyway in 1996!) so it was pretty terrifying – but hugely rewarding.

Since then (and attending Maui 2, and System New York 2011) I've come to realise that what gives me the greatest satisfaction is being able to share my experience with others.

So starting off in my local area which is easily reachable, I have decided to see if anyone might be interested in what I have to share, and believe me I can talk for *hours* about this stuff, it's just so fascinating.

If you'd like to join me at my home office, or a local conference center, I am now offering AdWords Training in Bracknell, Reading, Slough, Basingstoke, Fleet, Windsor, Newbury, Swindon and Oxford, UK.

What you learn could transform your AdWords campaigns …

Attend the Top 11 AdWords Mistakes Webinar Next Tuesday

Updated: Doh! It’s on Tuesday, 9/13/11

Next Wednesday, 9/14/11, I will be conducting a free webinar on the top 11 AdWords Mistakes as part of my Market Motive PPC class.

What I find top mistakes lists are useful for are learning what you don’t know so that you can focus on the areas where you can improve your PPC campaigns.

I often talk to advanced marketers who are unaware of modified broad match or aren’t using the display network properly. The webinar will be geared to all experience levels.

This workshop will cover the top 11 mistakes in about half an hour; and then we’ll leave plenty of time open for Q&A afterwards.

You can register for the webinar here.

I hope to see you there.

Attend the Top 11 AdWords Mistakes Webinar Next Tuesday is a post from: Certified Knowledge

Bidding Into A Positive Spiral That Builds Long Time Savings

Let’s talk about bidding, and a strategy to aggressively compete for your keywords. Specifically, by bidding heavily out of the gate ads can be positioned highly, enjoy a higher click through rate, enabling a higher Quality Score. This is referred to as a “Positive Spiral” since a series of events are setup that enable future successes.

The bids are what they are based upon your Quality Score, level of competition, as well as the historical performance of the keyword across all past advertisers. The Quality Score, the only lever that can really affect it, is based upon the landing page relevancy to it & the speed it loads, the performance (CTR), and bids.

Budgets should not determine the bidding strategy. Instead budgets should be used to determine the scope. If, very budget conscious, go after very specific traffic, looking for pockets of highly qualified searches that also drive volume. This will enable advertising targets to grow and bootstrap future efforts.

The two scenarios below outline how initial bidding approaches can impact your account costs down the road.

Scenario 1: Nickel & Dime to the Top

Many times new advertisers will want to dip their toe in, and set low bids and see how they do. After doing a number of searches after it goes live (and probably not clicking on their ad) they start to wonder why they show up low or not at all. They then go back into AdWords and raise their bids, maybe from $0.15 to $0.25/click.

They do some more searches and see themselves more often, but still at the bottom of the page. So, they go back in and raise it to $0.30, a nice whole number. More searches, but the same story. So they go back and decide to get aggressive, $0.50 – a half dollar every time some clicks on their ad! They are now in the middle of the page and someone even saw them second one down on the right one time (Position 5). With a sense of accomplishment and an eye on their wallet, they relax; brew a cup of coffee, and move on to something else.

A couple hours later they go and check in and see a Below First Page Bid of $0.65 and shake their heads, curse greedy Google and set’s the bid. In a few minutes they see their ad showing up again and leave for the night. The next day another message: Below First Page Bid of $0.75, they see some activity over the night, so decide to raise it to $0.85, hopping over what Google suggests.

Later in the day, they see their average position of 4.8 and with the other metrics encouraging decide to get aggressive, $1.50. This sits for a day and their average position climbs up to 3.2; they do searches and see themselves in #2. They get a number of clicks, with an Average CPC of $0.90.

Then, just before they leave for the weekend they check in and see Below First Page Bid of $1.65. Now they are starting to feel gamed, but want to see what happens over the weekend, so they set it and let it simmer until Monday. Within the course of a week, a bid that started off at $0.15 had increased more than 10-fold! This is the quintessential “Negative Spiral” since the early bidding did not drive the performance that raises a Quality Score.

Scenario 2: Heavy Handed Leverage

The next week the advertiser’s leading competitor saw the new ads when they did searches and decided they had to get into the PPC game. They go after the same keywords, but take a different approach.

They see their competitor’s ads already listed so they want to blow them out of the water. They set $2.00 bids and immediately find their ads in the first two spots. Traffic is flowing and even though the bid is $2.00 they notice that click prices are much lower, around $1.00.

With the high position they enjoy high click through rates giving them a more favorable Quality Score (assuming their landing page’s speed and relevancy to their targets are equal to the competitor in the first scenario). Based upon the positive history that is being built up, bids can be lowered slightly, and over a period of time, the same position can be awarded.

Now, the Caveats

There is certainly a hard floor for each position, and bidding down too aggressively can and will probably see the position drop dramatically. The performance metrics are what drives all of the residual benefits, so if a lot of qualified traffic is attracted, be sure to convert them! Churning and burning is what Google expects with aggressive bidding and they will gladly raise the bids up if you are “wasting space” at the top of the results. This is an aggressive, but subtle tactic to maximize long term investment in proven search channels.

This is not the only bidding tactic that can be successful, and it is usually used after an account has aged for a bit and successful keywords or the potential for success is apparent. Optimizing downstream and will help reinforce the investment. I also suggest launching this in a new campaign, so some of the historical impacts can be limited.

If starting an account and want to find the early opportunities, I suggest reviewing the terms in the landing page title and header tags to convert them in to phrase match keywords. Create ads that highlight specific value props, setting the appropriate expectations. Bid moderately-aggressive and convert the terms to either modified broad match or exact (with appropriate ad group distribution) based up on the level of competition and quality of traffic. This will provide a good lay of the land.

I also recently wrote an article on Optimizing PPC Budgets, which reinforces some of the theories here. Also, every Tuesday at Noon EST Matthew Umbro host’s #PPCChat on Twitter, where PPC experts answer probing questions around a particular aspect of paid search.

If you have some successful bidding strategies, please share them in the comments.

Chris Kostecki is the Search Analyst at Keurig Inc. manufacturer of the revolutionary single cup coffee brewer, part of the Green Mountain Coffee family. All views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily  represent the views of any entities he is associated with. Follow Chris on Twitter to keep up with the latest trends in Search Marketing.

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Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Certified Knowledge. If you would like to write for Certified Knowledge, please let us know.

Bidding Into A Positive Spiral That Builds Long Time Savings is a post from: Certified Knowledge

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